Skip to main content

Strange Christian stuff

A friend sent a link to a site which compiled photos of weird Christian merchandise. And it is weird stuff. This is what I wrote to him in reflection...

I looked at this and of course shook my head in dismay. Some of it may actually have been produced by enemies of the faith, I'm thinking. However, I've had a kind of new thought about Christian cultural oddities and a sort of paradigm shift about them.



I always felt ashamed of preachers with big hair and loud voices, along with strange Christian commodities, like the praying hands statue that glows in the dark, that sort of thing. When I was in Ghana I laughed to see how many of the businesses, owned by Christians, would use biblical terminology in their store names. One example was a barber shop called "King of Kings Haircuts", which caused no end of amusement to me.



Then today after looking at the link you sent I began to wonder if I have this right at all. Many of the things we feel to be culturally superior will one day be laughed at. Our grandchildren or great-grandchildren will probably be ashamed of how we dressed, talked, acted, and the things we took interest in. We will be seen as quaint (at the least) or more likely, hopelessly out of it, weird, ignorant, and provincial. They will think -- from their cultural vantage point -- we didn't have a clue. And this will then be true of them, that they feel (as we often do) that our cultural moment is somehow superior. And so the same will happen to them.



So if I see a preacher with funny hair or a loud voice and this offends my cultural senses, I wondering now, how weighty in the long run are my cultural sensibilities? If the guy in Ghana zealously operates his King of Kings barber shop for the glory of God, is it not superior, say, to a new, hip Starbucks run by someone in rebellion to God?



This is, of course, not to say we should aim at being culturally abrasive. What I'm thinking is that when unbelievers make fun of the cultural oddities of believers, I've tended to feel ashamed of my brethren. Now I'm seeing their mockery as having no real weight at all, other than to reveal their cultural snobbery.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

clement quotes hebrews

Clement of Rome wrote to the church in Corinth around AD 90.  This is perhaps the same Clement, companion of Paul, mentioned in Philippians 4:3.  Many hold him to be the first bishop / pope in Rome, aka St. Clement I.   Clement quotes from the letter to the Hebrews.  Origin suggested that Clement was in fact the writer (as transcriber or amanuensis) of Hebrews.  Perhaps this letter began as a "word of exhortation" given by Paul at the synagogue (Heb 13:22; cf Acts 13:15) which then became a circular letter for the churches.  Other possible authors of Hebrews include Luke, Barnabas, or Apollos.  The theology is Pauline, but the transcriber is obviously second-generation (Heb. 2:3-4). At any rate, this early church leader in Rome, is already quoting Hebrews in his letter in AD 90:    CHAPTER 36  ALL BLESSINGS ARE GIVEN TO US THROUGH CHRIST This is the way, beloved, in which we find our Savior, even Jesus Christ,  the High Prie...

Howard Hendricks on OT books chronology

When I was in seminary, Howard Hendricks (aka "Prof") gave us a little card with the books of the OT chronologically arranged. The scanned copy I have was a bit blurry and I wanted to make something like this available for our church class in OT theology ("Story of Redemption"). A few minor edits and here it is...

a brief history of bcf

Blacksburg Christian Fellowship, or BCF as it is popularly known, was founded in November 1969. Prior to this time several families had been meeting for Bible study and prayer, with a particular concern that the Lord raise up an effective biblical ministry to the students of the Virginia Tech campus. Growing from these meetings, the Lord led them to begin a public ministry on Sunday mornings. The Wesley Foundation agreed to the rental of their facilities, and the first meeting was held in November 1969, with about 30 people in attendance. Since the first meeting BCF has been greatly blessed by the Lord and has seen a steady growth in ministry and in numbers. Two other local churches were formed in part from BCF. In 1974 the Lord led Houston Couch, who at that time was an Elder in BCF, to leave and start Dayspring Christian Fellowship. In 1980 Max Harris, who was a regular attender at BCF, was encouraged by the Elders and members to start a ministry which has now become Grace Cov...